‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt’ Director Just Made His Strongest Case Yet for Finally Releasing the Shelved Film
Warner Bros.’ string of shelved animated projects has become one of the more baffling chapters in recent studio history, and ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ just gave fans fresh proof that public pressure can actually change outcomes. The hybrid live-action and animated film sat completely finished for three years after Warner Bros. canceled its release in 2023, opting instead for a tax write-off on a movie originally intended for HBO Max.
That decision sparked immediate backlash, and by November 13 of that year, just days after announcing the cancellation, Warner Bros. Discovery reversed course and began shopping the film around instead. Ketchup Entertainment eventually acquired the distribution rights, and ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ opened in theaters with a decent $15.5 million debut.
That turnaround has reignited hope for another Warner Bros. project stuck in the exact same limbo. ‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt‘ director Michael Kurinsky has now called for the shelved film to finally be released following the success of ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’ making his case directly to fans in a recent Instagram post.
Kurinsky wrote that in light of ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’ he has to bring awareness to everyone again no matter how much it hurts, noting that he was one of the directors of ‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt,’ a movie shelved by Warner Bros. He described it as every bit a Scooby-Doo mystery ready to be watched every Christmas with an A-list cast, tagging several of the film’s stars directly in the post.
That A-list cast is a big part of why the film’s continued shelving has stung for so long. ‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt’ features voice work from Frank Welker, Iain Armitage, Mark Hamill, Cristo Fernández, Ming-Na Wen, and Maya Hawke, among others, with original ‘Scoob!’ director Tony Cervone producing and co-writing alongside animation veteran Paul Dini.
The film was pulled from release by Warner Bros. Discovery on August 2, 2022, alongside the DC film ‘Batgirl,’ abruptly ending Kurinsky’s two years of work on the project. According to Kurinsky, the film was already about 95 percent finished at the time, with only a few hundred shots left to be finished, lit, rendered, and approved.
Unlike ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’ though, ‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt’ has not seen the same kind of momentum toward a revival. Even after the success of ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ proved shelved films can find new life, reporting has suggested reviving any of Warner Bros.’ other shelved projects would still require reversing complex financial arrangements and finding new distributors willing to take them on.
Ming-Na Wen has also expressed her own hope for the film’s release, telling ComicBook.com in a past interview that fans should “never say never” when it comes to the film eventually seeing daylight. That kind of cautious optimism from the cast has mirrored Kurinsky’s own public comments over the past few years as the project has continued to linger unreleased.
For now, ‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt’ remains without a distributor or release date, even as ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ sits in theaters as proof that a public campaign can actually move a major studio. Whether Warner Bros. decides this is a pattern worth repeating, or treats ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ as a one-off exception, remains to be seen.
Should Scoob! Holiday Haunt Finally Be Released?
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